By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com

Rob Ratliff can finally sit comfortably behind his desk as the elected Bucyrus law director. He soundly defeated former law director John Andrew Motter by a vote of 1528 to 609.

Ratliff had been hired into the position after Matt Crall moved into the county courthouse as the County Prosecutor. Now, with plenty of time and a number of months under his belt as city law director, Ratliff is ready to tackle some of the big issues facing Bucyrus.

“It’s really kind of humbling to know that people went out, went to the polls and voted for you,” Ratliff said Tuesday night. “This is the first, my first experience with this, and it really is a humbling thing to know that people actually show their trust in you by casting a ballot in your favor.”

Ratliff said running for an elected position was exhausting. “We went out, knocked on a lot of doors. We went and talked to a lot of people and, really, for the last month and a half, two months, it’s really been an exhausting experience.”

Ratliff credited Mayor Roger Moore, Police Chief Dave Koepke and Ratliff’s committee member Mike Behr for helping him run for office.

With the election behind him, Ratliff plans on tackling a number of issues.

“We want to really go after some of the abandoned and neglected properties in the city,” said Ratliff. “We want to try to modernize and streamline some of the things we’re doing from a prosecution standpoint, make the police more efficient and to make it easier to prosecute criminals for their conduct.”

Ratliff doesn’t plan on overlooking the Property Maintenance Code, either.

“There’s just so many problems with that, with abandoned properties and the conditions which a lot of people in our community are living that we really got to tackle that issue right away,” said Ratliff.

“It’s an important thing,” Ratliff explained. “When people drive through our town they see these abandoned buildings, these places that really shouldn’t be habited. And they see these and that cast an appearance on our community as well as provides a place where drug dealers hang out.”

“These are all issues that I think got to be addressed in the coming months,” Ratliff stated.

The only other contested race for the City of Bucyrus was for the three Council-At-Large positions. Incumbent Richard Rockwell (1,362 votes), incumbent John Walker (1,316 votes) and newcomer Wanda Sharrock (1,249 votes) took the three seats.

Garnet “Sis” Love gathered 1,597 votes for the Bucyrus City Council President and Jane Cremeans took home 1,648 votes for City Treasurer. Within the Bucyrus City Council Bruce Truka (234 votes) will be returning as the Ward 1 council member, Monica Sack (431 votes) as the Ward 2 council member and William O’Rourke (580 votes) as the Ward 3 council member. Steve Pifer, who was the write-in for Ward 4, will be returning to Council for another term after garnering 14 votes.

Visit our Elections page to view the final results in Crawford County for the Nov. 5, 2013 General Election.